Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Regions Boston/Cambridge Area for Quirky Kid

A lot of these gifted schools seem to want the same type of student - high achieving, high output, and with a high IQ as a measure of intelligence. This would include Sage, Acera/Anova, and other schools like perhaps BBN.

The 'other' gifted schools seem to do a better job at catering to kids with ADHD, SPD, dyslexia, Asperger's, etc. -- who are operating a grade or two above their chronological peers. These schools (Sudbury, Phoenix, Clark and others - maybe Odyssey too) fall more under this category.

BUT the numbers of gifted kids who meet these guidelines and have parents willing to pay the tuition isn't probably high - especially within certain geographical locations. That's been my experience; my ds has been in two g/t schools here.

That's why a number of the g/t schools will accept kids who are not g/t or 2e regardless. There's just not enough of larger pool of students to draw from unless they're centrally located or positioned to draw from a larger population based or population base who has the money to pay for the tuition. With increasing fees and tuition, many families are seeing un/homeschooling as a viable alternative.

cdfox, that's not true. It's been a while since you were investigating schools, and you son has some fairly challenging needs doesn't he? I am guessing that you, like me, ask questions specific to your kids needs, so you may have been mostly concerned with them being able to deal with his behaviours in a classroom setting to really notice whether they were high output or high IQ or whatever. Just like I mostly care about (not) high output and differentiation.

For some kids, a classroom is just not going to work. For example, from Odyssey's website

Sage: middling IQ, high output
Acera: high IQ
BBN: high output
Odyssey: normal IQ
Phoenix: normal IQ
Sudbury: democratic community, I wouldn't call it a school, but yes, it's good for severe ADHD.

It would blow your mind to know how many kids with high (including very high) IQs and other needs not too severe to preclude a classroom there are in this area, certainly not so few that a school has to go out searching for them.

Well that's eye-opening about Sage. If the 115 is the cutoff then perhaps the average is 125. On the other hand, that's not that different from the honors/AP track students in many schools throughout MA.

Tallulah - I am think you misunderstood my point. There are schools that use IQ scores and seem to subscribe to the notion that IQ has meaning. There are 'other' schools that are not so IQ dependent.

Admissions decisions at those 'other' schools are not solely based on IQ. They use other means of assessment. They also tend to accept kids who are not g/t because as I mentioned - there simply isn't the amount of g/t kids within certain geographical cache areas to support having a solely g/t school based on strict parameters like IQ and without kids who are 2e as well. I just spoke to the Waring School in Bev about this last week and with others within the last year; Waring School has had musical prodigies and other g/t have attended there as well.

There are many reasons why some schools may be better suited for a particular child than others. Some g/t schools are more traditionally structured; others less so. Some kids will struggle more with a traditional setting; others will excel in it. It really depends on the child.

Parents can get caught up in the numbers with IQ or other assessments but lose sight of the whole picture with schools (gifted or not). It's easily done. There are many variables to school regardless - the teachers, the curriculum, the delivery and presentation of subjects, how structured or not the school is, the other students, and it goes on and on. Some variables, you can control. Others you cannot.

Sorry, calling them 'gifted schools' threw me off. But the high output label didn't apply correctly, either.

You are right, I agree, that only Sage and Acera have the IQ test cutoff. But, for people with kids far from the mean those cutoffs really help enrich the population with peers for our kids. It's definitely better to have a progressive school (that's a technical education word, apparently) than your average public or output focussed school, but it's still not too useful if your five year old needs to be in with seven year olds. A progressive school with a hefty proportion of the students working a few years ahead is magic, and I'll bet you can't find it in too many other parts of the country.

Even those schools don't use the IQ score as the only measure, it's just the base you need in order to apply. Deciding who to admit or not admit is then based on other things.

Mithawk, I know! They certaInly don't bill themselves that way. I'd guess that Newton or Lexington would have a higher average IQ than that and/or be working at the same level. I don't know why you'd pay for private when the same environment can be found at public (for only a modest increase in your mortgage )

Yup. Spent some time in Brookline, where there were kids measured in the 110s across the board (cognitive and academic) still receiving special ed services.

in our house processing speed and output are not correlated.

Aeh -- So in a typical Brookline high school class, how many kids might be 99.9%tile types?

I've always wondered if there is ever a meaningful cohort of HG/PG kids in elite public (non-magnet) schools.

UlH

I don't know about Brookline, but I would say that yes, at my daughter's elite, public, non-magnet school there is a meaningful cohort.

I don't have group data on that, just anecdotes. I'd guess more than 0.1 %, though. I do know that Brookline is among the systems that actually has a protocol (or did at the time) for early admission to kindergarten, heavily weighted toward the cognitive assessment. (WPPSI and WJ achievement, at the time.) And that some kids were able to get gifted pullout in elementary on the basis of an interview, history, and observation, without testing. Of course, it's been a few years, so things could have changed.